Technical Article

Twitter #CloudChat: Cloud Security

It’s not surprising or new that cloud security remains a top concern for many organizations. For some time, purveyors of security studies have asked the market, “What’s stopping you from adopting cloud?” Invariably one of the most often cited show-stoppers is “security.” But how has the security landscape changed within the cloud over the past few years, and are there special tools everyone in IT needs to be equipped with to keep their organization’s information safe? Will the cloud mature to the point that essential security applications can be replicated in cloud and if so, when?

I will be moderating a #CloudChat on security December 10, at 11 am PST, where we will discuss these questions and much more on cloud security. To participate, simply follow the hashtag #CloudChat. We have an expert panel that will be leading the conversation including Wendy Nather, Pat O'Day, Kai Roer and Josh Michaels. Please find bios for each participant below the fold.

We look forward to a great conversation and hope you can join us!

Twitter Chat: Cloud Security (#CloudChat)

Date: Monday, December 10

Time: 11 a.m. PT / 2 p.m. ET

Length: 1 hour

Where: Twitter – follow the hashtag #CloudChat

Bios

Lori MacVittie

Lori MacVittie is responsible for outbound marketing, education, and evangelism of application services available across F5’s entire product suite. Her role includes authorship of technical materials and participation in a number of community-based forums and industry standards organizations, among other efforts. MacVittie has extensive programming experience as an application architect, as well as network and systems development and administration expertise.

Prior to joining F5, MacVittie was Senior Technology Editor at Network Computing Magazine, where she conducted product research and evaluation focused on integration with application and network architectures, and authored articles on a variety of topics aimed at IT professionals. Her most recent area of focus included SOA-related products and architectures. She holds a B.S. in Information and Computing Science from the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, and an M.S. in Computer Science from Nova Southeastern University.

Kai Roer

Kai Roer is an information security practitioner located in Norway. He works with clients across Europe, and is a renown resource for strategic information security. He is a guest lecturer focusing on strategic information security at the Norwegian School of Management, ranked amongst the best business universities in Europe.

Roer acts as Privacy Ombudsman for selected organizations, helping them comply with privacy regulations in Europe. He has addressed conferences in Asia, Africa and Europe, and is highly sought after when aligning security, technology and business needs. He has a mixed background of technology and business development.

Currently, Roer focus on competence transferal as a business trainer; security mentor; and as product- and technology independent advisor throughout Europe.

Roer claims that security is a business decision. Security should start at the top, and based upon the managements and stakeholders risk profile, should be implemented throughout the organization.

He is the founder of The Roer Group, established in 1994.

Pat O’Day

As Bluelock’s Chief Technology Officer, Pat is responsible for commercializing and making the company’s “Infrastructure as a Service” (IaaS) cloud computing model a business reality. With more than 15 years of experience as an information technology professional, he defines Bluelock’s services, spearheads its strategic vendor alliances and oversees the solution strategy.

After starting his career in network management and systems integration and then transitioning into managed IT services, data center outsourcing and disaster recovery, Pat is uniquely qualified to develop and continue to grow Bluelock’s innovative Virtual Datacenter services.

He is currently serving on the advisory council for the School of Information Technology at Harrison College as well as the CIO council for NPower Indiana.

He is also the co-founder and former president of the local Association of Internet Professionals, a former board member of the technology peer group for TechPoint, Indiana’s only statewide information technology association and has served on the board of Directors for both the Zionsville Boys and Girls Club and NPower Indiana.

Wendy Nather

Wendy Nather is Research Director, Security, within 451 Research's Enterprise Security Program, providing analysis on the current state of security from the perspective of a veteran CISO. Wendy's primary areas of coverage are on application security and security services.

Wendy joined 451 Research after five years building and managing all aspects of the IT security program at the Texas Education Agency, which serves 4.6 million Texas students. In that position, she directed multimillion-dollar initiatives for a statewide external user base of over 50,000. She also provided security guidance for the datacenter consolidation of 27 Texas state agencies.

Wendy previously worked in various roles in the investment banking division of Swiss Bank Corp (now UBS), including helping to build Europe's then-largest private trading floor. Based in Chicago, Zurich and London, she also served as the first IT Security Director for the EMEA region, managing the security aspects of various mergers, IT operations outsourcing and the division's first Internet presence. Wendy is coauthor of the book The Cloud Security Rules, and was named one of Tripwire's "Top 25 Influencers in Security You Should Be Following."

Josh Michaels

Josh is the Security Solutions Developer for F5’s DevCentral team. His areas of knowledge are security as a whole, access technology, firewall, threat analysis, defense modeling, open source intelligence, and geekness. Throughout his career, Josh has worked on everything from mainframes to threat modeling. josh has over 10 years of experience in the field, and serves on the executive board of the Seattle hacker space, Black Lodge Research, and coordinates the Seattle Bsides Security conference. He holds a Masters in Information Assurance and Security from Illinois State University.